Capacity Building for the Insular Areas

One of the objectives of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), is to improve the Insular Area Governments' administration of federal funds and collection of revenue. As such, DOI has responsibilities and investments in the Insular Areas consisting of the Governments of American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in fulfilling its audit oversight responsibilities of federal funds to these areas.

To achieve such a goal, a joint-training program between the Insular Areas' Public Auditor's Offices, DOI Office of the Inspector General, and DOI Office of the Insular Affairs was initiated in Fiscal Year 2002 to provide the Public Auditor's Offices with capacity building through training and technical assistance programs. Staff members from Insular Area governments are sent to selected Office of the Inspector General field locations to attend sixty to ninety-day period "hands on training" fully-funded by DOI.

On April 30, 2004, Ms. Limanman Elanzo represented the Office of the FSM Public Auditor in a sixty-day period training program at the Office of the Inspector General Field Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Through coordination between OIG Liaison Officer, Mr. Ben Privitt, and the FSM Public Auditor, Mr. Haser Hainrick, the training was arranged and organized to meet the training needs and expectation in enhancing the staff's audit capacity. This type of training continues to be arranged in order to facilitate the training needs and expectations required of each Insular Area government's Public Auditor's Office.

According to Ms. Elanzo, the training was very useful as it significantly expanded her audit knowledge, specifically during the preliminary stages of an audit. She was assigned to an on-going DOI program audit during its preliminary survey and performed relevant tasks to accomplish objectives and/or goals of the audit stage involved. After completion of the sixty-day training period, Ms. Elanzo will apply the experience she gained when conducting on-going and future audits of the FSM.